Recently, various video cameras for writing audiovisual digital data, including video data and audio data (which will be simply referred to herein as “AV data”), on a randomly accessible storage medium such as an optical disk or a flash memory have been proposed.
Since such a video camera has started its recording operation and until it finishes the recording operation (which will be referred to herein as a “recording session”) every time, the camera generates a plurality of files. The group of files thus generated is handled as a non-linear set of files on a storage medium.
That is why by repeatedly performing the recording sessions, more and more files will be generated on the storage medium, which is quite a different story from a situation where recording is carried out on a magnetic tape. For that reason, even if the user loads a player with such a storage medium and tries to play his or her desired video, for example, by selecting an appropriate file, it will be difficult for him or her to find his or her target file quickly by searching such a huge number of files. In addition, the player has to perform file opening and closing operations on such a great many files, and therefore, has a heavy processing load to handle.
To get the search done more quickly, Patent Document No. 1 proposes a method for playing back recorded files linearly on a first in first out basis by sorting those files on a storage medium by the timestamps of generation to draw up a playback list and then playing them one after another based on that list.                Patent Document No. 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-217266 (pages 3 to 6 and FIGS. 1 and 9)        